13 ways to stay sane and overcome sleep challenges
Nearly every woman I talk over age 35 has sleep frustrations.
I've had sleep challenges since I was about 35 - I often wake up 1-2 times a night.
This used to make me freak out in all kinds of ways - some nights I'd have intense anxiety, some nights I'd be angry, some nights I cried with frustration. No longer!
I tried just about everything to sleep through the night - here's what I found helps me.
If you struggle with sleep, I hope you'll make figuring out how to sleep well a top priority - and get help if it's a struggle for you.
My Mum and Grandma had Alzheimers and I want to live to a ripe old age with my mind and body in tact!
Sleep helps our brains be healthy, so I put sleep ahead of most things in my life. I hope you will, too, for your sake and the sake of everyone who comes into contact with you throughout your life!
In my mid thirties, I felt like I was literally losing my mind because due to insomnia, and I felt like my body was falling apart. I tried everything:
Sleep lab - they said I was fine (I wanted to punch the doctors)
Sleepy time teas - woke me up to pee in the middle of the night
Hot baths - helps but don't stop the 2 am wakeup
Exercise - helps but don't stop the 2 am wakeup
Reducing coffee - still awoke at 2 am, and I was tired all day
Meditation - I do it daily and it helps, but it doesn't keep me asleep (except on 10 day silent meditation programs, which is cumbersome for every day life!)
Part of this I believe is hormonal, part is my reaction to caffeine, part is genetic, but these aren't reasons to stop working toward not letting my brain rot inside my skull!
Hard is not a reason not to do something.
Make sure to check out the link to my favorite sleepy-time meditation at the end.
How I get more and better sleep:
Stop freaking out
Create a sleep sanctuary
Do a brain dump
Keep lights low / use candles
Program screens to dim
No liquids 1-2 hours before bed time
Read or listen to without internet
Kick out pets & phones
Wear earplugs
Drink less caffeine earlier
Exercise
Forgive
Take medication if needed
BONUS if you have a partner who snores or moves a lot:
Have comfortable second sleep location.
1 Stop freaking out
Did you know it's an option to not dive into anxiety? This came as a surprise to me.
I love the saying the antidote to anxiety is action...
I DO NOT sit and stew in worry in the middle of the night anymore.
I used to lay in bed with anxiety building as minutes turned to hours, thinking I need to sleep! I have so much to do tomorrow! How am I going to get by without enough sleep?!
The more I worried and tried not to bother my partner with tossing and turning, the more I felt the urge to toss and turn and the more my anxiety and frustration grew.
Worrying about not sleeping doesn't make us sleep. You have the option to stop the worry train in it's tracks.
As soon as I feel anxious or hear anxious thoughts, I take quick action. I get important thoughts out of my head (see #2), do something to distract my mind (see #7), and, if my partner is in bed with me, I go to my other bed.
Again, I DO NOT sit and stew. It's no longer an option for me.
2 Create a sleep sanctuary
Declutter and organize for sleep. A cluttered bedroom can add to anxiety and stress. Take time to set up the bedroom as a sleep sanctuary by doing these things:
CLEAR OUT anything that doesn't HAVE to be in your bedroom. Get help if needed!
SURROUND WITH SLEEP: put items around that remind your brain, "I'm going to get a great night of sleep!"
PICK UP: take time to pick up clutter around your room before getting in bed.
CREATE COZY: help the child inside feel safe, loved, comfortable and supported - I use body pillows, soft sheets...and keep my stuffed lion, Lumpy, nearby
Lumpy, my sleep buddy SET UP an 'in-between basket' next to a hamper instead of tossing clothes you might wear again all around
READ my Top 10 Tips for Decluttering Success for help with this process and to learn what an in-between basket is.
Many of us have clothes in our bedrooms, and for some it's also the place for sex, but you can still prioritize sleep and have only supportive things in your bedroom!
3 Do a brain dump
Write down important things needing to be done the next day.
Thoughts about things we need to do are like torture devices that keep us from sleep by arousing our nervous system. Get them out of your head!
I have two spots in my bedroom with a pen and notecards to catch my thoughts - one on my dresser near where I get undressed, one next to my pillow.
I write down what I want to remember for the next day and immediately put the notecard on my decluttered floor where I'll see it the next day.
When I'm laying in bed and my brain starts spinning, I immediately write down the thought and throw the notecard to the end of my bed.
This action not only catches the to-do but tells my body, NOPE! We're not spinning on this tonight!
I often write these in the dark so they need deciphering the next morning, but it's worth it!
5 Keep lights low / use candles
The Sleep Foundation says, "Light is the most important external factor affecting sleep."
They also say, "Light plays a central role in regulating circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock that signals when to be alert and when to rest. Light also affects the production of melatonin, an essential sleep-promoting hormone."
At night, on my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I turn down my bedroom lights and lower my blackout curtains.
In the bathroom, I light candles without turning the light on. I keep a lighter in a specific place so I can find it - my husband learned the hard way how important this is when I went around yelling, "Where's my **** lighter!" and I explained to him how important sleep is to me.
After I light my candles, I avoid bright lights like I'm a vampire. I LOVE my night time candlelight!
6 Dim screens
Most newer technology with screens have built-in options to schedule lights to dim at a certain time.
I have this scheduled on my phone and the Amazon Fire I use to listen to books at night. For my laptop I use a program called F.lux. The screens change color, but my sleep and sanity are worth it!
7 No liquid within 1+ hours of bed time
When I went to the sleep lab, I slept better than I had in years. When they awoke me at 5 am I was so angry I yelled with tears in my eyes. I felt robbed.
They didn't find anything wrong with me, so the sleep doctor gave me a book and that was that. (I'm still mad about this).
What was different that night? I didn't drink tea or read, which I did every night to help me sleep. I was also in a new place in a very comfortable bed with no lights except a little red one near the ceiling.
I hadn't gotten up to pee and I somehow I wasn't anxious about the light actually being someone watching me from another room.
And I didn't associate this room and bed with bad sleep, which is what we tend to do when we don't sleep well over and over in the same place.
So I cut out reading and tea, stopped drinking anything at least an hour before bed, and refreshed my room so it felt like a new place.
Now I fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer!
I do still have my story at bed time (and often throughout the night)...
8 Read or listen to books without internet
I have a VERY strict rule for myself: absolutely no social media or internet searching in my bedroom.
For Christmas one year my husband gave me an Amazon Fire loaded with books by my favorite author, Gerald Durrell (such a thoughtful gift!). We now marvel at how life altering this gift was.
I keep the internet turned off on this device, and instead of reading with a light on, I put an ear bud in one ear, an earplug in the other, turn on my book, turn off the lights...
I'm usually asleep in less than five minutes! It's like magic! It's a pavlovian response now - when my brain hears the reading voice, I fall asleep.
You can use whatever works for you, but I recommend it be something without blue light so it doesn't affect your melatonin and other necessary, natural sleep chemicals.
(James Harriot's books have the same effect - somehow I don't mind falling asleep to his arm inside a cow).
The important things are:
mind is distracted by something mindless
eyes are closed
lights are off
no internet
I'm ready for sleep
If I awaken throughout the night, I put the earbud back in and I'm usually asleep again in minutes. Some people set a timer, but I like to have it playing when I inevitably wake up.
Of course the screen is on the night setting and as dim as it can go!
No apps are loaded on my Fire, it's purely for books and the meditation below.
8 - Kick out cats, dogs and phones
When I first started having sleep trouble, my beloved dog Cricket slept under the covers at my feet (don't ask me how she breathed!).
When she started snoring and kicking in her sleep, I gave her a bed next to my bed.
When her snoring started waking me up with my heart revved up, I taught her to sleep in the living room.
It kind of broke both of our hearts, but I didn't have all these other tools then and it was either her or my health.
When I moved in with my husband, he had cats that slept with him. It's wonderful when he's home because they cuddle with him, but if I'm alone they want to sleep with me, which is no better than sleeping with Cricket!
So, armed with earplugs and a few things to throw at the door, I locked them out. It took
about three nights of diligent throwing, but now they know not to even try.
Research shows phones are an enemy of sleep - it's too tempting to scroll long past our bed time, they make noise, and the blue light of the screen blocks important sleep chemicals.
One of the first steps in my night time routine is to plug in my phone downstairs. It's like putting my friend to bed! No temptation, no midnight dings.
I understand if you have children or other potential emergency calls, this is more challenging...
But I urge you to carefully weigh the long term effects of keeping your phone near your head and do what you can to allow yourself to sleep.
9 Wear earplugs
This was a game changer for me. Some people say they don't fit right or they're uncomfortable, but for me, not sleeping is much more uncomfortable.
It's been well worth the first few nights when I felt like Frankenstein with uncomfortable knobs sticking out of my head.
Putting in an earplug is now part of my night time routine (the other ear has an earbud for my audio book). I love hearing all sound but my breathing disappear...
10 Drink less coffee
I. Love. Coffee. I love the flavor and the warmth and the ritual and the smell...
But I also love to sleep and want to avoid dementia. What a conundrum!
It used to be that the worse I slept, the more coffee I drank the next day. Now it's the opposite.
If I have a rough night of sleep, I think back on the day before - how much did I drink and when did I drink it? I often find I drank coffee later than my normal 10 am cutoff time and/or more than 1-2 cups of my half decaf blend.
Every January I do a cleanse and cut out coffee for 2-3 weeks (among other things). This gives my body a break from the stimulant and resets my caffeine tolerance.
When I'm used to drinking multiple cups of coffee every day, it takes multiple cups of coffee to feel "awake."
When I cut it out, I can actually feel the caffeine kick in. It's a weird feeling! My heart rate and anxiety go up, I hear myself talking faster, I see myself moving faster and multitasking more...
Watching caffeine kick in is like watching someone on drugs.
After my cleanse, the amount of coffee I drink daily ratchets up, and I have varying degrees of self control. But I now make a conscious effort to not drink coffee after 10:30 unless I'll be staying up late.
11 Exercise
"Get busy living, or get busy dying," says Red in Shawshank Redemption.
Yes, everyone says to exercise is good for everything in life and some days we just don't want to!
But we weren't built to sit in one place and not move for hours on end.
Toxins pool up, our muscles, tendons and ligaments stop working smoothly, and we begin to break down from the inside.
Maybe that sounds harsh, but that's how I see it. We were born to move.
I make a point to get up and move every single day. Even in the rain. I take walks, do jumping jacks, do a minute plank in the morning before getting dressed...
Just. Do. Something.
Anything is better than nothing!
When I get regular exercise, I feel more energetic and positive, I ache less, I can concentrate and think more clearly, I'm more able to focus...
And most importantly, I sleep better.
12 Forgive your bed and bedroom
When we expect to get crappy sleep, we'll likely get crappy sleep.
I used to know in my bones I was going to have yet another frustrating night, then I did. Now I know just that expectation set me up for terrible sleep.
But now I have great sleep almost every night!
I believe it's in part because I forgave my bed, my bedroom, my body and my brain. I stopped blaming my bed and bedroom and started taking responsibility when I got a bad night of sleep.
A bad night of sleep is an invitation to look back on the day(s) before to see what may have caused it, and to look ahead at what we can do to change it for future nights.
13 Take medication if needed
Almost every night for 3ish years I've taken 25-50 mg of Hydroxyzine to help me sleep - it's an antihistamine and anti-anxiety medication that doesn't make me groggy.
I used to be deeply opposed to medication, but at about age 45, after 10 years of awful sleep, I took the advice of the wonderful gynecologist I gave my list of ailments to.
She said something like:
"Get regular sleep, then we'll check in about all the other health issues. Good sleep heals so many other things in our lives."
I encourage you to do whatever it takes to get good, consistent, deep sleep.
If you've wanted to try new sleep tricks but are resisting, hear my voice and your inner voice urging you to begin. Today. Maybe right now.
And if you know of someone with sleep challenges, please share this with them.
If there's a tip or trick that helps you sleep, let me know! I'm always looking for new ideas.
Good luck and sleep well!
XO,
Spring
Here's a 45 minute body scan meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn that makes me fall asleep every time
Want help with organizing for sleep?
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There's no need to struggle with clutter anymore - you're not alone and I can help you feel better right away.
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